Sunday column: Getting it wrong

Sunday

Oct 28, 2007 at 6:33 AMOct 28, 2007 at 6:40 AM

Many people never make the connection between Benjamin Franklin and the city of Franklin. It's not unusual to hear someone say Franklin was named after Daniel Webster. Daniel Webster, after all, was born in Franklin.

Well, not actually. He was born in Salisbury, but Franklin's boundaries were redrawn so the Daniel Webster birthplace would fall within the township.

But back to Ben. Benjamin Franklin, as Firesign Theatre has noted, is the only president of the United States who was never president of the United States.

Firesign Theatre, I should point out, is a 1970s-era comedy team famous at one time for bringing us Nick Danger, George Tirebiter, and the Department of Redundancy Department.

But back to Ben. Many Americans who are not strong on history mistakenly believe that Benjamin Franklin was a president. Most, of course, know him as the crazy guy who tied a key to a kite string in order to capture lightning, the printer famous for the expression "A penny saved is a penny earned," and perhaps as the inventor of the Franklin stove. Fewer people know him as an early nudist who liked to take daily "air baths" or as the man responsible for Daylight Saving Time.

(Yes, it is officially Daylight Saving Time with no "s" and not Daylight Savings Time with an "s" — but most people get that wrong, too — just as they fail to understand humor and call for the execution or at the least the firing of those like Don Imus whose humor is not funny, or they take to heart a whimsical idea like Benjamin Franklin's Daylight Saving Time and make it into law.)

For it was Franklin, bored and mostly confined to his quarters in Paris at age 78, who did a humorous analysis on how much Parisians could save in candle wax if they were forced to rise at 6 a.m. instead of noon. (For a full account of Franklin's parody, see http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/franklin.html.) Years later, people would take up the idea as a serious one and eventually pass laws forcing people out of bed at ungodly hours and making similarly ludicrous claims about energy savings that allegedly result from the manipulation of the daylight hours.

As intolerable as Daylight Saving Time has been, President George W. Bush made it worse by signing the Energy Policy Act of 2005 which extended Daylight Saving Time one more week. If not for that act, we would be back on Standard Time today; instead, we have to wait until Nov. 4 to operate again in real time.

That means delaying for another week the changing of batteries in our smoke detectors, for fire officials recommend using the time change as a reminder of when to replace the batteries for fully functioning devices. Now batteries have to remain in the smoke detectors for seven months in the summer, making it more likely they will fail at the time most people are finding it necessary to begin using their stoves again.

It means students waiting for school buses have to stand in the dark where motorists are less likely to see them on their way to work in the morning.

It means travelers going overseas will fight more than jet lag, because the European Union's Summer Time ends today — and Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, and Arizona do not observe Daylight Saving Time at all.

For me, it has created problems in the past because I always tried to take a vacation after getting through the town and school district meeting period in the spring. On more than one occasion, I returned from vacation just as Daylight Saving Time kicked in but, because I had been on vacation, I neglected to set the clocks ahead and ended up arriving back at work one hour late.

This fall, it means rising while it is still dark (and therefore having to use extra electricity and turn up the heat early) because, before I can leave for work, I have to take care of our animals, including feeding and releasing the horses from the barn. If we were on real time, I'd rise as the daylight comes through the window.

The other day, as I carried some hay to the paddock in the dim light of morning, I saw something furry on the ground beside the barn. As I approached, I realized it was a woodchuck, digging at the soil. What it was digging for was beyond me. It cast a glance my way but must have concluded I was harmless because it turned back to the task at hand and ignored me as I stepped past.

At first I thought it might be sick or even rabid, but I finally realized it simply disregarded what it saw because no one in his right mind would be out before sunrise to take care of horses.

If our politicians were in their right minds, they would not be passing laws that create artificial time periods, shifting daylight hours for purported energy savings. If they were really interested in saving energy, they would let people adjust their schedules according to what works best for them, keeping in mind what their energy demands would be. Simply shifting the hours does not create energy savings.

What it does do is to disrupt the body's natural circadian rhythm (or body clock) and some people never recover from that disruption. During the periods where the time change occurs, accidents increase in number and people become less productive at work, according to government studies.

Daylight Saving Time simply doesn't work.

Ben Franklin's friends knew his treatise to be a humorous work and appreciated the humor. Today, for some inexplicable reason, most people polled say they prefer living under Daylight Saving Time and some advocate keeping it year-round.

Perhaps it's because they think President Bush's 2005 signing came in recognition of the wisdom of extending what President Franklin originated.

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